A hundred years passed like a silent storm.
Deep within the icy cave, the glowing fruit pulsed slowly, patiently — as though waiting for the right heartbeat to echo through the cosmos. Then one day, without warning, the warmth returned. A spark flickered. A heartbeat answered. The fruit cracked.
From its glowing shell emerged a child. A girl with hair like starlight and eyes that flickered with flame. She was not born. She bloomed.
She opened her eyes for the first time, unaware of who she was or what world she had come into. The only memory was of a flame… and a boy's tear falling on her skin.
Far away, in a quiet forest village on a reborn Earth, Bobby lived as a stranger among humans. He was no longer the child from the frozen world. Now a young man, calm and distant, he wore the weight of forgotten centuries. No one in the village knew of his past — only that he had once arrived in the dead of night, carrying a sword wrapped in torn cloth and eyes too old for his age.
He had built a life. He farmed. He watched stars. He didn't speak of gods or fire.
Then one night, the stars changed. Bobby felt it — a ripple in his blood. And in the heart of the forest, a girl appeared. Barefoot. Glowing. Lost.
He found her where the starlight broke through the trees. She looked at him as if she'd always known him.
"Do you remember me?" she asked softly.
"No," Bobby replied. But his flame flared just slightly, and her eyes shimmered.
She remembered nothing. Not even her name. But Bobby saw something in her — a familiarity, a warmth he hadn't felt in years. So he brought her home. Gave her food. A name.
"Roop," he said. "That means beauty born from light."
From that day, they lived like two lost stars orbiting each other. Roop learned to live like a human. Bobby learned to feel again. They didn't know that the gods they had never prayed to were watching. Or that deep within the sun, a throne of ice had begun to melt.
Darkness was moving. And soon, their quiet village life would shatter.